ADVENT
14.
~John 9
O, I see! I see!
You were cast out,
weren’t you?
Washed your eyes
in the Siloam Pool
proclaimed:
whereas I was blind,
now I see.
Your people,
even parents,
turned their backs
on you,
denied you,
you with your new-
opened eyes.
Of course you must
have contempt for
for what you left,
what you lost.
on this strange
and lonely way
Two thousand years
away from you,
maybe I can see
your sneer
as the fear
that once it was.
ADVENT
13.
~John 8
It must have been fear—
that most compelling feeling—
that attached them
to your Jesus. Why else
would anyone follow
a fellow who goes on
and on about above
and below, about
himself and his distant
father? And worse—O
worse!—a fellow who sees
people (like the woman
caught in the act)
as opportunities
for tedious theologizing.
You scared them,
John Gospeller.
They believed they’d be
condemned without
your esoteric creed.
It must have been fear.
Likely, it still is.
ADVENT
12.
~John 7
Why, pray, would I follow your Jesus?
He honors the obfuscate;
his work is intellectual malignment.
Otherworldly, he keeps his secrets,
disparages what is human,
insists upon duality.
He will not look me in the eye.
Why, O John Gospeller,
would you have us believe
that this is Word made Flesh?
ADVENT
11.
John 6: 16-71
So the flesh profiteth nothing, doth it?
And the work of God is belief?
They are still in the storm, John Gospeller:
children wizened with hunger,
wrecked by bombs and fires,
blinded with tear-gas,
sickened by water and air.
And you say
God’s work is belief?
Oh yes, John, I am
murmuring against your Jesus.
How dare you condemn the Pharisees?
At least their rules were clear.
ADVENT
10.
~John 6:1-14
Why multiply loaves and fishes if
your Jesus disparages miracle?
If he was sent from heaven only
to teach the elect, why make him
show off to the crowd? And
worse—why have him
set up these expectations?
Bread does not increase,
fishes decrease because
of the hope for miracle
that does not come no matter
how hard the believing.
And what are we
among so many?
ADVENT
9.
~John 5
Move away from what you know.
Can you?
Bread and wine,
comfortable and magical words,
candles, flowers,
Victorian hymnody,
linens arranged just so.
Just so.
Walk away
from stained glass,
stone towers, bells.
Stop being helpless.
Today is the holiest of days.
Stir the waters
in the pool of mercy.
Be a burning light
ADVENT
8.
~John 4:45-62
Not in the center
where things are certain,
not at the center
where power holds.
Signs and wonders
are not the signs.
You must decrease.
Come down
ere the child dies.
